Grove Koger

The Terminal

 

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“You don’t really want to go in there, now do you?” 

 

It always begins this way: I’m standing in front of a long, low building at twilight. It isn’t clear whether it’s morning or evening, although the sense I have is of evening, since the air is pleasantly warm and there’s a faint smell of flowers, maybe lilacs, in the air. There are no signs on the building, and it’s nondescript, aside from the fact that it has a long series of doors alternating with small windows through which a dim light is shining. 

 

Somewhere far away in the darkness a dog is barking, and a man has begun shouting sharply and rhythmically, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” 

 

It’s at this point that the stranger appears on my right, studies me for a moment, and says, “You don’t really want to go in there, now do you?” 

 

It’s a statement rather than a question, and maybe I do want to go in and maybe I don’t, but I’m so frightened at being addressed by a stranger that I can’t speak, can’t move, can’t go in or leave, either one.

 

So far as I can picture him in my mind, the stranger is—and always has been, every time—well-dressed in a dark, old-fashioned suit and vest and wearing what I now know to call a bowler hat. But beneath his collar I can see the edges of what looks like a white bandage with brown stains on it, stains that stand out even in the dim light. 

 

“You don’t really want to go in there, now do you?” 

 

Has he said it again? I’m not sure. 

 

But one time, as I approach the building, I realize that I do want to go in, and there’s no one to discourage me, so I pull open the door, which is stiffer than I expect. It’s really no lighter inside than it is out, but I can make out a row of benches in front of me and, far beyond them, through a series of other doors, a jumble of lines and shapes that suddenly resolve themselves into poles and wires and metal tracks glistening in the faint light. I realize that I’m in a kind of terminal, although I’m pretty sure that the first few times this happened to me, I’d never visited or even seen a terminal. I’m not even sure I had ever heard anyone use the word. 

 

In any case, on my right there’s a booth with a window and a counter. I know that this must be the place where a person buys a ticket. But do I want to buy a ticket? Where would I go?

 

The booth seems to be empty, but then, just as I turn to look more carefully through the far doors, the top of someone’s head pops up briefly at the bottom of the window. As I watch, the head appears again, and I can see that it seems to be unusually round and large. Then forearms appear on either side of the head and a person pulls himself up and looks back at me through the little window. As I’ve said, his head seems unusually round and large, or perhaps his arms and trunk are unusually small. As soon as he positions himself securely, perhaps on a stool, he stares out at me, grinning, his head lolling to one side. Although the room is poorly lighted, as I said, I can see him perfectly well grinning at me and running his tongue over his glistening lips.

 

I’m so uncomfortable at the sight of the little man and his grin that I turn away immediately, and it’s then that I realize that someone is standing in front of me. He’s tall and thin and dressed in a kind of uniform and he’s holding a clipboard that he’s studying intently. As I examine him more carefully, relieved not to be looking at the little man in the booth, I recognize the stained bandage around his neck and realize that it’s the stranger who’s approached me so many times outside. 

 

When he looks up to see me, he seems to be as surprised as I am. He frowns, glances back at his clipboard, pulls a watch out of a side pocket to check the time, and then leans down slightly to stare, not unkindly, at me. 

 

“You don’t really want,” he says after a moment, “to get on here, now do you?” 

 

I realize that no, I really don’t want to get on, not now anyway, and suddenly I’m outside again. It’s gotten darker, but as I stand there outside the long, low building, the dog is still barking rhythmically, like the steady ticking of a watch, and the man is still shouting, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” 

 

Grove Koger is the author of When the Going Was Good: A Guide to the 99 Best Narratives of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure; Assistant Editor of Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal; and former Assistant Editor of Art Patron magazine. He lives in Boise, Idaho, and blogs about travel and related subjects at worldenoughblog.wordpress.com/author/gkoger/.

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